In any given emergency, in order to minimize the loss or damage to life or limb, property or the environment, a prompt response is critical. The reaction time for emergency services such as Fire, Police, Paramedics or (Hazardous Material (HazMat)) Teams, can be significantly reduced when complete and correct information pertaining to the situation is available as soon as the emergency service becomes aware of the emergency. In many cases, insufficient information will not allow a response at all. The establishment of the national 9-1-1 emergency telephone system was a big step toward providing a universal response method for a plethora of emergency situations. However, even with the advent of the 9-1-1 system, voice communication with a live operator is currently the standard means to initiate a request for emergency assistance. Except for any name, address and telephone number information that may appear on the 9-1-1 operator's computer screen, all emergency information must be transmitted verbally.
Verbal transfer of information is prone to be slow, inaccurate, and incomplete. Sometimes such verbal transfer is clearly inappropriate--it would be difficult for one person to provide CPR to a heart attack victim while calling an operator and explaining the situation and it would be dangerous to wait for operator response in a burning building full of toxic materials.
There is thus a need for a device that can automatically transmit all the necessary information required for fast accurate emergency response times. While such an apparatus could be used with any monitoring service, it would be particularly advantageous if it could be used in conjunction with the 9-1-1 system and did not require any additional special purpose equipment at the facility which receives the 9-1-1 call.
There are many prior art emergency data transmitters.
One version, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,219,698 to Birilli, transmits a tape recorded aural message to some emergency service. This method is slow, subject to mechanical failure after time, cannot send diagrams or photos and cannot specify discrete messages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,983 to Mitchell, discloses a similar transmitter but with digital encoding added. This invention is subject to the same limitations as above; in addition the receiving stations must be equipped with specialized digital equipment for decoding the signals and therefore limit the universal usefulness of the transmitter.
The devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,593 to Shapiro, U.S. Pat. No. 3,945,006 to Cleeton, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,284,849 to Anderson et al., all transmit limited digital information that must also be decoded by specially programmed equipment.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,371,751 to Hilligoss, Jr. et al., discloses a device which transmits a very limited number of aural messages that are stored digitally. While not requiring any special receiving equipment, the device is not capable of sending any visual information and only a limited amount of aural information.
Additionally, other types of known emergency signaling systems require that all of the emergency information be stored in advance at the receiving station which is then retrieved when an identifying code is received from the sending station. This, of course, means that data cannot be so easily changed and that the sending station is usable only with a specific receiving station in which the relevant data has already been stored, thereby inhibiting general public use on a large scale.